Authors: Tilly Bagshawe
Today was a big day for Logan too. Laura Baxter had had her baby, a little boy they’d named Felix, and had emailed Logan, inviting her to come and see the baby. It would be the first time Logan had gone back to the village since storming out of Furlings, and the first time she’d seen Laura face to face since the fire. Jason had watched her set off to Victoria Station this morning looking white-faced with nerves. But she’d gone, and he was proud of her. He prayed things went OK.
His mind swiftly flipped back to tonight’s concert, and the likelihood of Tati showing up. The thing was, as much as Jason loved his wife, she had a way of making him feel nervous. It was his fault really, not hers. Somehow Tati always seemed to remind him of his own inadequacies. There she would be, poised and confident and beautiful and successful, willing him on. And there he would be, frightened and sweating and useless and disappointed, letting her down.
George Wilkes, on the other hand, was a face he desperately wanted to see through the smoky clubroom tonight. With his gentle manner, his unquestioning acceptance of all that Jason was, good and bad, George was like a human quilt. Either that, or a fortifying shot of whisky for good luck. Jason wasn’t sure which simile fitted his friend better. George, too, had promised to ‘try’ to make it.
Jason glanced at his watch.
Nine o’clock.
Ten hours to go.
Tonight was going to be his night.
Laura Baxter wrapped the blanket more tightly around her infant son’s shoulders and stared at his face lovingly. She wondered if his little nose and permanently pursed mouth would ever seem less than magical to her. She couldn’t imagine that they would. Lots of people said he looked like Gabe, but Laura couldn’t see it at all. Felix didn’t look like anyone. He was himself: tiny, unique and quite perfect.
‘Would you like to hold him?’
‘Oh, no. Thanks.’ Logan looked terrified. She and Laura were ensconced on the sofa in the drawing room at Wraggsbottom Farm, with Felix’s Moses basket wedged in between them. Gabe was out on the farm and would be gone all day, so the two girls were alone. Laura had made tea and cut some slices off the enormous Battenburg cake that Mrs Worsley had brought over from Furlings ‘in case you get a bit peckish, while you’re feeding.’ Everyone in the village had been so kind, but at this rate Laura stood no chance of losing her baby weight. Logan, by contrast, looked skinnier than ever and positively fragile in the black skinny jeans and baggy, cover-all sweater she’d chosen for today’s visit.
‘He’s lovely,’ she stammered, ‘but I … I wouldn’t know what to do.’
‘There’s nothing to “do”,’ Laura laughed. ‘You just pick him up and cuddle him. Like a doll.’
‘I’d rather not,’ said Logan. ‘My hands are shaking just thinking about it. I might drop him.’
Reaching into the basket, Laura lifted her son herself and leaned back against the sofa cushions, allowing Felix to rest against her while she chatted to Logan with both hands free.
‘Pass me my tea, would you?’
Logan obliged, and Laura could see her hands actually were shaking as she rattled the cup against its saucer.
‘It was sweet of you to come.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Logan, blushing. ‘It was sweet of you to ask me. I should have come a long time ago. But I couldn’t face it.’
‘Couldn’t face what?’ Laura asked gently.
‘You. Gabe. What I’d done.’ Logan looked down at her hands and kept her eyes resolutely fixed there.
‘It was an accident,’ Laura reminded her. ‘You didn’t set fire to the barn on purpose.’
‘Yes. But it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t got drunk and invited all those idiots over, and smoked weed even after Seb told me how dangerous and stupid it was.’
‘We all make mistakes,’ said Laura. ‘Thank goodness the others had already gone home when it happened.’
Logan nodded. ‘And thank goodness I’d been too lazy to bring the horses inside that afternoon, or they’d all have been baked alive in their stalls.’ Her hand flew to her mouth, imagining the horror of what might have been. She let out a little yelp of distress, and had to force herself to look up at Laura. ‘I wanted to come before, to say sorry. But “sorry” just sounded so inadequate, under the circumstances.’
‘I think sorry sounds fine,’ Laura said kindly. ‘Now do eat some cake, for heaven’s sake, or I’m going to turn into the fat one from
Bridesmaids
.’
Logan tried to laugh, but it wasn’t working. If anything Laura’s sweetness was making this harder.
‘You saved my life,’ she said. ‘After all the mean things I said about you … you saved me.’
‘Did you say mean things about me?’ Laura looked surprised more than offended.
‘Sometimes,’ Logan admitted. ‘But none of them were true. The problem was I was
poisoned
with jealousy.’
Laura laughed. She had missed Logan’s melodramatic, teenage turns of phrase.
‘I loved Gabe so much,’ Logan went on seriously. ‘And you had him, and I couldn’t bear it. That’s also why I behaved like such a prat. I think I thought if I were a bit more cool, and drank a lot, and did adult things like smoking weed and going out with Seb …’
‘Is going out with Sebby Harwich an “adult thing”?’ Laura couldn’t help interjecting.
‘You know what I mean,’ said Logan. ‘I thought it might make Gabe see me in a new light.’
‘I see,’ said Laura
.
Poor girl.
It had obviously taken a good deal of courage for Logan to come back to the farm today and face her. Laura wondered if she’d been brave enough to confront her father as well; she asked her.
Logan shook her head. ‘I think I’d be shot on sight if I went back to Furlings.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ Laura frowned. ‘I know your mother misses having you at home, and I’m sure your dad does too. Men aren’t always great at showing these things, you know.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Logan, noncommittally.
‘I ran into your mum yesterday as it happens,’ Laura went on. ‘Gringo had fallen into some sort of silage, I think, and she was dragging him back across the field for a bath.’
‘Oh, Gringo!’ Logan pouted. ‘I think I miss him most of all.’
‘Yes, well, you’ve got a lot in common,’ teased Laura. ‘He’s definitely the naughtiest dog in Fittlescombe.’
‘Perhaps he’ll reform?’ grinned Logan. ‘Like me.’
Laura laughed. ‘Perhaps he will.’ Felix wriggled sweetly against her chest, disturbed by her laughter. He then emitted a fart so loud and long it was impossible to believe it had come from such a tiny person. Logan erupted with giggles.
‘What on earth have you been feeding him?’ she looked at Laura aghast.
‘Just breast milk, I swear! What can I tell you? Flatulence runs in the Baxter family, I’m afraid. Gabe may seem perfect from a distance, but I can assure you he has his faults – and plenty of them. You’ve never seen him in Speedos.’
‘Oh God, really? No. He doesn’t, does he?’ Logan gasped.
‘Not any more. But he did before I married him,’ said Laura. ‘Then there were the snowflake socks.’
‘Stop!’ pleaded Logan.
‘The goatee that made him look like Noel Edmonds.’
‘Oh, now, come on. I don’t believe that.’
‘I have photographic evidence!’ Laura squealed. ‘Hold Felix and I’ll get it for you.’
Logan demurred. ‘There’s no need. The truth is, it’s sweet of you to say all that, but I’m not in love with Gabe any more.’
It was such an endearingly honest comment that Laura wasn’t sure what to say. She eventually opted for ‘Oh.’
‘I probably never was. It was just a crush gone a bit, you know … mad.’ Logan pushed her hair out of her eyes. She’d cut it shorter since Laura last saw her, but it suited her face, and her new, more mature manner. Then again, a crew-cut would have suited Logan Cranley. She really was disastrously pretty. ‘I’m in love with an amazing boy now. Tom,’ she gushed. ‘Tommy. You’ll meet him one day. If Gabe’s OK with it.’
‘I’ll meet him whether Gabe’s OK with it or not,’ said Laura robustly. ‘Free advice for you, angel. Never let a man tell you who you can and can’t hang out with. Not that Gabe would dare.’
‘I’m sure he wouldn’t!’ giggled Logan. Laura Baxter really was the nicest woman she knew. She somehow combined all Tatiana’s fun side with all her mother’s kindness.
‘Felix is so lucky. Having you for a mum,’ she blurted out suddenly.
Laura was so touched she felt tears prick her eyes. ‘Logan. Thank you. What a lovely thing to say. And you mustn’t worry about Gabriel. He’ll come around eventually, I promise.’
Back at her office at Hamilton Hall, Tatiana reached into her desk drawer and scrabbled around for a headache pill. She usually kept Nurofen in constant supply, as well as Alka-Seltzer for those mornings-after-the-nights-before, and (slightly embarrassingly) Rescue Remedy bottles for everything from stress to fatigue. Obviously they didn’t work. But there’d been a fad for them in her A level year at school years ago, and Tati had got into the habit of using the little glass bottles; rather in the same way as she still read her horoscope at the back of
Vogue
every month.
Today, irritatingly, she was out of everything. And boy, could she use a pill right now.
Unlike Jason and Logan, Tatiana was having a horrendous morning. Hamilton Hall’s headmaster, the brilliant and eminently sensible Drew O’Donnell, had called her to the school to fire two teachers. As chair of governors, and CEO of the parent company, hiring and firing were still officially Tatiana’s job. The problem was that both today’s fire-ees were lovely people: genuine, vocational teachers with decades of experience in their respective subjects of Chemistry and Maths.
‘Look, I don’t like it any more than you do,’ Drew O’Donnell told her. ‘But Miss Watkins’ class all did poorly in their mocks last week – we’ve had several complaints from parents. And David Brinton can’t focus on anything since his wife died. His head’s a mess.’
‘Can’t we give him compassionate leave or something?’ Tati protested. ‘It seems awful to sack someone for grieving.’
‘We offered.’ Drew threw up his hands. ‘The old boy won’t take it. He’s stubborn as a mule. I feel terrible for him, I do, but it’s not fair to leave our Year Sixes with substandard teaching. Besides which, our policy’s clear. Poor performance is cause for dismissal.’
Tatiana knew. She wrote the policy, a document abhorred by the teachers’ unions who viewed it as the educational equivalent of
Mein Kampf
. Hamilton Hall staff were paid twice the salaries of their unionized peers at other schools. But their jobs came at a price.
Tati buzzed her secretary. ‘How long do I have till Janice Watkins’ appointment?’
‘About ten minutes, Mrs Cranley.’
Tati used the time to check her schedule for the rest of the day, then wished she hadn’t.
Fuck.
She’d totally forgotten, but she’d agreed months ago to go to tea with her elderly godmother this afternoon.
Beatrice Radley-Cave – Bee, or Queen Bee, as she had always been known to Tatiana – was ninety years old, sharp as a tack and lived in a mansion flat in Westminster that had been frozen in time at some point in the early 1950s. This was probably also the last decade in which it had been properly cleaned. Despite her somewhat shoddy surroundings, Queen Bee herself remained as regal as ever. She was not a woman one disappointed – or rescheduled – lightly.
Tati adored her godmother, and in other circumstances would have looked forward to a visit. But things were so preposterously hectic at work, between the firings and the ongoing boardroom battles over a New York school, she had neither the time nor the energy for Bee today.
Not that work was going badly, per se. Tati’s last trip to New York had been wholly positive, from a business point of view. Not only had she found a great potential site for Hamilton Hall NYC, but she’d met with two potential new investors who might be willing to step in and provide funding, should Tati’s chairman and CFO really stick to their guns and try to block her. She ought to have returned to London in high spirits. But for some reason her unexpected run-in with Brett Cranley the evening she arrived had both heightened her stress levels and depressed her.
How had Brett known about the infighting amongst the Hamilton Hall board? There was no way he’d have heard anything through Jason. Relations between father and son were as bad as they’d ever been, nonexistent at this point, in fact. Was it just coincidence that Brett had been staying at Tati’s hotel? Somehow Tati doubted it. She didn’t trust him an inch.
The thought that Brett Cranley might be up to something, and that she didn’t know what it was, accounted for part of her anxiety. The other part was harder to explain. She hated Brett with a passion, felt repulsed by the very thought of him. And yet she couldn’t seem to
stop
thinking about him. In some dark, sinister way, Brett seemed to be all around her, a shadowy ghost hanging over her marriage, her career, her future. Worse, since bumping into him in New York, Tati had started to have dreams about him, some of them embarrassingly sexually explicit. She awoke from these dreams panicked and drenched in sweat, gripped by a sensation that was part arousal, part disgust and part fear. And then Jason would lean across the bed and ask her what was wrong, and a new torrent of emotions – guilt, shame, resentment – would wash over her. She hadn’t even told Jason or Logan that she’d run into their father in New York. Which was ridiculous! Why not tell them? It wasn’t as if she’d done anything wrong. But somehow, every time it might have come up naturally in conversation, Tati couldn’t bring herself to do it.
‘Mrs Cranley?’ The secretary’s voice crackled over the loudspeaker. ‘Janice Watkins is here to see you.’
Tatiana sighed. Running a successful business was good for the ego, but both the self-esteem and the financial rewards came at a cost. Brett Cranley had been paying it his whole life and it showed. Was Tati really becoming just like him, as Jason had said? She hoped not.
‘OK Caroline,’ she said grimly. ‘Show her in.’
Beatrice Radley-Cave scowled as her goddaughter walked in.